Varieties of Liberals and Conservatives
Liberalism and conservatism are anything but monolithic. Both provide rich moral and political worldviews, rich enough to permit a wide range of variation—an almost dizzying complexity that if looked at from a distance might just seem like a big soup. But when we look closely, we see a great deal of systematic variation.
The kind of complex variation we find is just what anyone who studies human categorization would expect. Most categories are similarly complex. In my book on categorization, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things (A2, Lakoff 1987), I surveyed the evidence showing that one of the main sources of such complexity is “radial” category structure. A “radial category” has a central model, which gives rise to systematic variations that radiate out from the center like the spokes of a wheel. The example I gave in Chapter 1 of this book was the category “mother,” where the central category was defined in terms of a cluster of models—birth, genetic inheritance, nurturance, and marriage. This gives rise to many variations within the category of mothers: birth mothers, single mothers, unwed mothers, working mothers, stepmothers, foster mothers, genetic mothers, surrogate mothers—all variants based on the classic central case: mom, who gave birth to you, gave you half your genes, raised you, and is married to dad. This doesn’t make the classic mom a “better” mother, or “more of a mother.” All it means is that good old mom is a prototype, a central case, and that the variants are defined with reference to her.
Most of our categories are complex in this way, containing a great many variations on a central case. The categories “conservative” and “liberal,” one would expect, should be no different. And it appears that they do show the same kind of radial structure that other categories show.
Throughout most of this book I have been concerned to describe the central models of liberals and conservatives. But since noncentral cases vary from the central cases, most readers who are either liberal or conservative should have found places in the discussion above that did not apply to them and to many of their friends. I discussed that in advance in Chapter 9 and gave a promissory note that we would look at the parameters of variations later. The time has come to pay off that promissory note.
We saw in Chapters 5 and 6 that the Strict Father and Nurturant Parent models were central members of radial categories, and that there were four parameters for the variations on the central members: (1) Pragmatic-Idealistic; (2) Linear Scales; (3) Moral Focus; and (4) Clause Variation in the Moral Order metaphor. I have argued over the past seven chapters that the Nation As Family metaphor, when applied to the central model in the Strict Father and Nurturant Parent moral systems, yields central forms of conservatism and liberalism. I will now argue that the same parameters of variation applied to the central models systematically characterize varieties of conservatives and liberals.
Before we move on to the details, it is important to consider the role of the study of variations within the overall theory presented in this book. If we can make sense of a variety of types of liberals and conservatives—of the views that they hold and the reasoning they use—then this analysis of variations lends greater support to the analysis of the central models. The reason is this: Variation data are extraordinarily complex. The theory of radial categories claims that variations should be systematic in a certain way, determined by the application of parameters of variation to the central model. But the account of variations only makes sense given the central models. Thus, support for an account of existing variations is also support for the existence of the central models on which the variations are based.
Let us now turn to the details.
Parameters of Variation
Let us begin with the parameters of variation described in Chapters 5 and 6.
1. Linear Scales
2. The Pragmatic-Idealistic Dimension
3. Moral Focus
4. “Clauses” within the Moral Order (Strict Father model only)
Since the political models arise from the family-based models through the Nation As Family metaphor, we should expect to find the same parameters of variations in the political models—and we do. Let us begin with the Pragmatic-Idealistic dimension.
PRAGMATIC VARIATIONS
As we saw in Chapters 5 and 6, pragmatic variations on the idealistic central models arise in the following way. In both central models, the pursuit of self-interest serves as a means to an idealistic end: the end of self-reliance in the Strict Father model and the end of nurturance in the Nurturant Parent model. The pragmatic variations on these models reverse means and ends, making the pursuit of self-interest an end in itself and making either nurturance or self-discipline and self-reliance into two very different means toward that end. Through the Nation As Family metaphor, the pragmatic variations on the family models are projected onto politics. What results are pragmatic versions of conservatism and liberalism.
Pragmatic conservatism is less idealistic than central conservatism. The goal is to get ahead, to serve your self-interest. The idealistic parts of conservatism are seen as effective means to achieve that goal. If you want to get ahead, you’d better be self-disciplined and self-reliant. You’d better stick to the straight and narrow so that nobody gets upset with you. You’d better obey legitimate authority, or you could get hurt.
A homelier way of seeing the difference is to ask which is the dog and which is the tail. In central conservatism, the idealistic dog wags the self-interested tail. In pragmatic conservatism, the self-interested dog wags the idealistic tail.
Pragmatic conservatives are more likely to compromise on the principles of Strict Father morality for the sake of self-interest. Central, or idealistic, conservatives are more likely to stick to their principles, even when it goes against their self-interest. Of course, since self-reliance is one of those principles, they can’t go against self-interest too much.
As should be obvious, the pragmatic-idealistic distinction is not absolute but a matter of degree, since it can vary from time to time and from issue to issue. You can also choose issues that are beyond compromise, issues where it would take a lot to compromise, and issues where you are willing to compromise. A great many variations on conservatism result from a decision as to where to be idealistic and where to be pragmatic.
Liberalism has a similar idealistic-pragmatic dimension: In central (or idealistic) liberalism, the pursuit of self-interest (say, for money and power) is a means toward the end of nurturant morality: to be better able to help others and promote fairness and nurturance in society.
In pragmatic liberalism, the end is to allow people to best pursue their self-interest, and the means is nurturance: empathy, being in a nurturant environment, being self-nurturant, being basically happy, being treated fairly and treating others fairly. There are two cases here.
First, someone can best seek self-interest as an end if he is an object of nurturance, if people empathize with him, help him when he needs help, and help him fulfill his potential, if he is allowed to be basically happy, and if he is treated fairly.
Second, someone can best seek his own self-interest if he empathizes with others, helps others, takes care of himself, is basically happy, and treats others fairly. The idea is that being both an object and agent of nurturance helps you pursue your self-interest as an end in itself.
Thus, pragmatic liberals see social programs as a way to help others pursue their self-interest, while idealistic liberals see social programs as a commitment to providing basic human needs, which is an end in itself. To pragmatic liberals social programs are investments; to idealistic liberals, they are a matter of civic duty.
Again, it is a case of whether the self-interested dog wags the idealistic tail (pragmatic liberal), or whether the idealistic dog wags the pragmatic tail (idealistic liberal).
As in the case of pragmatic conservatives, pragmatic liberals are more willing than idealistic liberals to compromise on their principles if it serves either their self-interest or the self-interest of others. And as in the case of conservatives, liberals can’t compromise too much or people will stop helping them, which would hurt their self-interest. Thus, in both cases, there is a self-regulating mechanism that keeps pragmatic liberals and conservatives from losing touch with their respective moral systems.
Pragmatic political figures are sometimes called “moderate” or “middle of the road” because of their willingness to compromise. But the term “moderate” gives the false impression that there is a linear political continuum, with people distributed along it. The continuum metaphor hides the major role played by moral systems and the fact that pragmatic politicians in America are usually pragmatic versions of either liberals or conservatives.
Not surprisingly, both pragmatic liberals and conservatives are commonly criticized by their more idealistic colleagues for betraying the moral principles of their respective ideologies, for “waffling” on issues, or for watching which way the wind is blowing.
LINEAR SCALES
In Chapter 5, we saw that the Abusive Parent model is an extreme version of the Strict Father model, in which punishment is very severe. The difference is one of linear scale, and the difference of degree results in a difference of type. We saw the same in the previous chapter in the analysis of conservative vigilantism, which differs from central conservatism by taking extreme positions along three linear scales: (1) the degree of punishment in the Strict Father family model; (2) the degree of resentment and anger at the meddling parent in the Strict Father family model; and (3) the degree to which violence is sanctioned.
In Chapter 6, we saw that virtually every aspect of the Nurturant Parent model is subject to linear scale variation. Many of those family model variations correspond to variations on liberalism. Take, for example, an overprotective parent who puts too much energy into protecting children when no protection is needed. Conservatives see “excessive” government regulation as a form of overprotectiveness. Or take a parent who puts excessive energy and other resources into nurturance, so much so that he doesn’t take proper care of himself. This corresponds to the conservative criticism that liberals spend so much money taking care of people that they will bankrupt the treasury. In this way, family model excesses are projected onto what are seen by conservatives as political excesses.
MORAL FOCUS
Thus far we have seen two kinds of variations within the liberal and conservative categories: (1) pragmatic-idealist variations, and (2) linear scale variations. A third kind of variation is one of moral focus. Let us begin with liberals. It is hardly uncommon for blacks, whether ordinary citizens or politicians, to focus on race, or for women to focus on gender issues, or for members of ethnic minorities to focus on ethnic issues, or for gays to focus on gay rights issues. These kinds of focus constitute a politics of identity. Other kinds of moral focus are issues like the environment, or poverty, or labor relations, or education, or health care.
What exactly is moral focus? It is giving moral priority to one particular domain of interest over others. The result is that one domain is seen as having primary moral significance over other domains.
Thus, people can be liberals with the same family model, the same moral system, and the same degree of idealism vs. pragmatism, and yet, as political beings, they may live in different universes. If the most important thing to you is race, you may have little interest in environmental issues, except perhaps as they apply to race. The views of a liberal on issues may vary greatly depending on his focus. For example, consider two liberals, one with a moral focus on civil liberties and the other with a moral focus on violence against women. The first will probably support keeping pornography legal, while the second may want to ban it. Or consider two liberals, one with a moral focus on race and the other with a moral focus on environmentalism. The liberal focused on race may be against any environmental regulations that would cost blacks jobs. Black people alive now may be more important to him than owls or old-growth forests.
Moral focus is very different from self-interest, with which it is often confused. A white person may have the rights of nonwhites as a moral focus, as many whites did during the civil rights movement. They didn’t do it out of self-interest. Some blacks at the time may have been for civil rights out of self-interest, but I suspect that, for most blacks, the issue of race was primarily a matter of moral focus: the lens through which they viewed the world and the domain in which their moral system was of most immediate relevance for them. Environmentalists rarely if ever have the environment as a moral focus merely out of self-interest. Instead, they find the environment to be the locus of major moral relevance in their lives.
INDIVIDUAL VS. SOCIAL FOCUS
In the Nurturant Parent model of the family, children have the right to have their basic needs met and the right to fair treatment by their parents. Children also acquire family responsibilities as they grow up. The Nation As Family metaphor translates these aspects of family life into aspects of political life: The individual rights and social responsibilities of citizens. Either can receive a moral focus.
Not surprisingly, there is a version of liberalism with a moral focus on individual rights in the domains of politics and economics. It sees government as providing and protecting such rights. Let us call it rights-based liberalism. (See References, C3; Rawls 1971). Correspondingly, there is a form of liberalism with an opposed moral focus, a focus on social responsibility. Let us call it communitarian liberalism. (See References, C4; Etzioni 1988, 1995). Each of these, of course, has many versions.
MORAL DEFOCUSING: INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL ORIENTATION
Just as one can focus on one aspect of a model, giving it highest priority, so one can defocus on an aspect of a model, taking priority away. The differences between focusing and defocusing on an aspect of a model can be striking.
Consider, for example, what I will call the “internal” aspects of Nurturant Parent morality: self-nurturance, self-development, and moral happiness. There are liberals who have made one or more of these internal aspects their moral focus.
The human potential movement, for example, is concerned with just these aspects of life, which are seen at least as a moral concern, and often as a political concern. This includes the exploration of alternative forms of religion—various forms of Judeo-Christian renewal in the direction of Nurturant Parent rather than Strict Father biblical interpretations, as well as exploration of eastern religions and forms of nature worship. The politics of religion is very much an issue in many of these groups. They realize that spiritual life is intimately tied to moral life, which is intimately tied to political life.
A moral focus on self-nurturance and moral happiness has produced a moral and political movement centered on healthy and good-tasting food: organic produce, organic farmers’ collectives, and vineyards are supported by networks of chefs and restaurants who see themselves as involved in a politics of nurturance. From this perspective, cooking healthy, good-tasting, and preferably organic food is part of a politics that overlaps with environmentalism. The development of farmers’ markets is part of this; fresh produce is best grown locally and brought to market every day or two. If you want fresh fish, then local streams and coastal waters will have to be kept clean and communities of fishermen will have to be protected. All of these are political issues. And they are set within an entrepreneurial capitalist framework—developing tastes and markets and means of making such enterprises profitable as well as socially useful.
A moral focus on all these “internal” aspects of nurturance leads to a morality and politics of art and education. Bringing art, crafts, design, and all sorts of aesthetic considerations into everyday life is a contribution to self-nurturance, self-development, and moral happiness, and is thus a contribution to the idea of a nurturant society. The same is true of an education in which art, health, and the study of many cultural and spiritual traditions have central roles.
These “internal” aspects of Nurturant Parent morality can be defocused as well, and there are a great many liberals for whom the internal aspects of nurturance are absent from both their morality and their politics. Such liberals are “externally oriented,” oriented toward social issues alone. Externally oriented liberals tend to be more ascetic than internally oriented liberals. They tend to focus more on economics, race, class, and gender. Some have no internal focus at all and have no understanding of internally oriented liberals. Indeed, they may misinterpret internally oriented liberals in the same way that conservatives do, as narcissistic, self-indulgent, and hedonistic.
Many liberals have a balance of internal and external aspects, with no particular focus on either. But there are some who are either entirely internally oriented or externally oriented, and they may have a hard time talking to one another.
Conservatives too have various kinds of moral focus. James Dobson’s Focus on the Family group, not surprisingly, has the family as its moral focus. The pro-life movement has abortion as its moral focus. Other common forms of conservative moral focus are violent crime, opposition to affirmative action, moral education, illegal immigration, welfare, the right to bear arms, and so on. These give rise to as many varieties of conservatism as there are varieties of liberalism.
Libertarians
Libertarians provide a very interesting challenge to the study of variations on a central model. Libertarians see themselves as forming a separate political category, neither liberal nor conservative, but something unto itself. An analysis in terms of variations on central models suggests that their view of themselves is not entirely accurate.
Suppose we start by looking at the central conservative model. Consider a variant on that model that is pragmatic in the extreme, that is, think of a conservative who sees the pursuit of self-interest as the principal end, and conservative morality (self-discipline, self-reliance, etc.) as a means to that end. Someone who is extremely pragmatic will be willing to sacrifice aspects of conservative morality if it interferes with the pursuit of self-interest. Now imagine such a pragmatic conservative having the moral focus: noninterference by the government. So far as I can tell, this is what a “libertarian” is, namely, an extremely pragmatic conservative whose moral focus is on noninterference by the government. In short, a libertarian is two steps away from a mainline conservative.
Such a person will believe that free enterprise should be as unrestricted as possible and that people should be self-disciplined and self-reliant in order to pursue their self interest. He will be very much against social programs, taxation, government support of education and the arts, government regulation, and gun control. But the libertarian’s moral focus on noninterference by the government and his extreme support of the pursuit of self-interest will make him a radical advocate of civil liberties. He will oppose any governmental restrictions on free speech, pornography, abortion, homosexuality, and so on. He will probably support the rights of women, gays, and minorities to equal opportunity, but be strongly against affirmative action on the grounds that it gives individuals things they haven’t individually earned. He will most likely be pro-choice on abortion, but not believe that the government should pay for abortions. And since he gives priority to the pursuit of self-interest over the rest of the conservative moral system, he will not have the moralism of mainline conservatives; the seven deadly sins may not be sins for him.
A good example would be drug addiction, which, to many libertarians, would not in itself be immoral. Libertarians commonly favor the decriminalization of drug use and sale on the grounds of maximum noninterference by the government and maximum pursuit of self-interest. They frequently argue that government interference in the drug trade has artificially driven up the price of drugs, brought criminals into the drug market, and forced drug addicts to turn to crime to support their habits. Decriminalization, they argue, would allow honest business to pursue the drug trade, bring in competition, lower prices enormously, not force users to turn to crime, and not make it profitable enough for major crime syndicates to bother with.
The libertarian’s advocacy of civil liberties will bring him into overlap with liberals on many positions. But the source of that advocacy comes from a different place—from a conservative model with minimally restricted pursuit of self-interest and a moral focus on noninterference. The advocacy of civil liberties in Nurturant Parent morality comes from the nurturance model, especially the concern with empathy, with fair distribution, with happiness, with development of one’s potential, and so on. Empathy and fair distribution are not libertarian concerns.
The fact that libertarians and political liberals both strongly advocate civil liberties is a superficial similarity. They do so for very different reasons, out of different moral impulses, with a very different spirit. Though two steps away from mainline conservatism, libertarians are conservatives in three very important respects: (1) Their concern with noninterference by the government comes directly out of conservatism, out of the idea that the government is inappropriately paternalistic, that mature citizens should be left to take care of themselves. (2) They preserve primary conservative moral priorities: self-discipline, self-reliance, and individualism, rather than the cultivated interdependence required by the nurturance model. (3) They do not give priority to the values of Nurturant Parent morality: empathy, nurturance, interdependence, fairness, and responsibility for others.
There are, of course, lots of variations possible within the category of libertarians. One would no more expect uniformity there than in any other radial category. But variation within the ranks of libertarians is not random. One source of variation is the degree to which a given libertarian preserves conservative moral positions; for example, some libertarians might echo the conservatives’ aversion to drugs because drugs arise from, and perpetuate, moral weakness. In general, the variation among types of libertarians reflects their conceptual links with conservatism. We don’t tend to find libertarians supporting welfare or the progressive income tax or government protections of various kinds.
Thus, despite the claims of libertarians to be a category unto themselves, they appear to be just two steps—two important steps—from central conservatism, and the variation within their ranks seems to tend toward conservatism. There is, after all, a reason why the scholars at the libertarian Cato Institute seem largely to be writing in support of conservative rather than liberal positions. Nonetheless, there is no objective answer here. They are far enough away to think of themselves as a separate category and close enough for others to think of them as conservatives.
Liberal Strict-Father Intellectuals
I remarked in Chapter 1 that we do not all, or even mostly, have a coherent politics, that one might, for example, be conservative on foreign politics and liberal on domestic politics. The descriptions of Strict Father and Nurturant Parent moralities characterize just what it means to be liberal or conservative on an issue or an area of policy: it means to apply a given family-based moral model to a domain of politics through the Nation As Family metaphor.
But it is also possible for someone to be a strict political liberal, applying only the nurturance model in his politics, while being a conservative in other aspects of life. A familiar case is a class of liberal intellectuals who apply the Strict Father model to their intellectual lives.
Consider someone who is a thorough going liberal, but whose intellectual views are as follows:
There are intellectual authorities who maintain strict standards for the conduct of scholarly research and for reporting on such research.
It is unscholarly for someone to violate those standards.
Young scholars require a rigorous training to learn to meet those scholarly standards.
The only way they can learn appropriate scholarly rigor is to be given difficult assignments and held to a high standard of performance, for example, to be given difficult tests and graded harshly.
Students require the incentives of grades if they are to develop the self-discipline needed to be a scholar. High grades are rewards and low grades are punishments. Receiving consistently high grades is a sign of self-discipline and therefore of good scholarship.
Students should not be “coddled.” They should be held to strict scholarly standards at all times.
The goal of scholarly training is to produce rigorous scholars who are self-disciplined and self-reliant, that is, who can maintain scholarly rigor and uphold scholarly standards on their own.
This is an application of Strict Father morality to academic life. Here academic scholarship is conceptualized metaphorically as a version of Strict Father morality. The conceptual metaphor can be stated as follows:
Academic Scholarship Is Strict Father Morality.
• Mature Scholars Are Strict Fathers.
• Intellectual Authority Is Moral Authority.
• Scholarliness Is Morality.
• Unscholarliness Is Immorality.
• Scholarly Rigor Is Moral Strength.
• Lack of Scholarly Rigor Is Moral Weakness.
• Scholarly Discipline Is Moral Discipline.
• Scholarly Standards Are Moral Standards.
• Students Are Children.
• Teaching Is Setting Rules for Moral Behavior.
• Good Grades Are Rewards for Moral Behavior.
• Bad Grades Are Punishments for Immoral Behavior.
• The Prospect of a Good Grade Is a Moral Incentive.
• Tests Are Tests of Moral Strength and Self-Discipline.
• Scholarly Success Is an Indicator of Good Moral Character.
• Scholarly Failure Is an Indicator of Bad Moral Character.
Among the entailments of this metaphor are:
Intellectual authority must be followed; it is not only unscholarly to do otherwise, but it violates the system of academic authority as defined by Strict Father morality.
Competition for grades builds character and is an incentive for good scholarly practice.
Scholarly achievement is an individual matter, a measure of an individual’s moral worth.
Students who are intellectually weak should be allowed to fail; only if they are punished can they learn self-discipline.
Coddling or indulging a student will make him intellectually weak.
Grades are a measure of a student’s intellectual worth.
Much of the academic world and academic institutions are run according to this metaphor, which is based on Strict Father morality. Intellectuals who accept this view of the academic world may be political liberals, but they are intimately acquainted with Strict Father morality and practice it in their everyday professional lives.
Feminisms
I would now like to turn from varieties of liberalism and conservatism to varieties of feminism, for a number of reasons. First, an adequate theory of the variations within categories must be able to account for the varieties of feminists. Second, we must be able to account for the existence and nature of conservative feminists as part of that theory of variations.
But lastly, and perhaps most importantly, feminism is a major part of the liberal political scene, yet there is so much variation within feminism that it is often hard to make sense of all the variants. For this reason, it is important to show that the mechanisms for characterizing variation that we have been discussing can make sense of a highly complex area of politics.
GENDER
There is a big difference between sex (a biological concept) and gender (a cultural concept). Gender is characterized by a collection of common folk models about sex roles. Each such folk theory characterizes a single stereotypical property of men and women. Taken collectively, the folk models characterize stereotypes of what is masculine and feminine, so that the stereotypical male is masculine and the stereotypical female is feminine. Here is Alan Schwartz’s (References, A2, Schwartz 1992) account of those folk models.
The Physical Prowess Model
Men are strong.
Women are weak.
The Interaction Model
Men are dominators.
Women are cooperators.
The Family Roles Model
Men are providers.
Women are nurturers.
The Division of Labor Model
Men work in the public sphere.
Women work in the domestic sphere.
Men are rational, objective, detached.
Women are emotional, subjective, in touch with themselves.
The Sexual Initiation Model
Men initiate sexual behavior.
Women respond.
The Discourse Model
Men talk in order to act on the world.
Women talk to maintain social networks.
The Morality Model
Men have a morality based on laws and strict rules.
Women have a morality based on nurturance and social harmony (References, B2, Gilligan 1982).
In each case, the property ascribed to men has a higher social value.
Masculine gender is defined by the collection of stereotypical male properties in these models; feminine gender, by the collection of stereotypical female properties. Gender is therefore characterized in terms of cultural roles, not biology. Hence, there can be feminine men and masculine women.
Most of the forms of feminism that have developed over the past thirty years have been set within a liberal context, and for a good reason. Liberalism allows for social causes, and gender stereotypes are social and seen as having causal powers. Since the male roles in gender stereotypes are more highly valued in society, gender stereotypes are seen as giving power to men. Feminism in a liberal context sees this as unfair and believes that such unfairness should be eliminated. Since liberalism is concerned with social causes and fairness, such views are fundamentally liberal.
Within liberalism, there is thus a general form of feminism. Feminism (1) assumes that the above-mentioned gender stereotypes exist; (2) assumes that higher values are placed on the male roles; (3) assumes that these values given to social stereotypes have causal powers that give men a dominant position in society; (4) sees male dominance as unfair and to be remedied.
Given this general form of feminism, specific forms arise as a result of (1) differences of moral focus, and (2) differences of opinion about the truth of the gender stereotypes. Here are some examples:
Given this general form of feminism, specific forms arise as a result of (1) differences of moral focus, and (2) differences of opinion about the truth of the gender stereotypes. Here are some examples:
RIGHTS-BASED FEMINISM
There is a feminist version of rights-based liberalism that (1) takes individual rights as a moral focus and (2) denies the validity of the gender stereotypes. The result is rights-based feminism, which sees government as the appropriate remedy for unfairness to women in the political and economic spheres. On this view, it is the role of the government to eliminate political and economic unfairness to women. The Equal Rights Amendment seeks to commit the government to this task generally. The National Organization of Women, NOW, is an organization of rights-based feminists.
RADICAL FEMINISM
There is a form of liberalism called radical politics which has as its moral focus equality in power relations in every domain of life. The feminist version of this is called radical feminism, which (1) denies the validity of the gender stereotypes and (2) has a moral focus on strict equality of power relations between the sexes in all domains of life. It claims there is, or should be, no cultural difference between men and women that results in any power differential, that power differentials between men and women should be eliminated in every sphere of human activity, and that this can be done only by individuals, not the government.
BLOCULTURAL FEMINISM
There is a third form of feminism that accepts the truth of some or all of the gender stereotypes, but believes that feminine gender roles should have a social value as high or higher than masculine ones. In other words, society should place equally high or higher value on cooperation, nurturance, emotionality, the domestic sphere, the maintenance of social networks, nurturance, and social harmony. This view is called biocultural feminism. Biocultural feminism takes nurturance itself and the biological nature of women as moral foci. Biocultural feminists believe that nurturance is a feminine gender trait and that it is a higher, more moral basis for society than domination, which is seen as a masculine gender trait. They believe that women’s social roles (those involving nurturance) need to be valued at least as highly as, if not more highly than, men’s (which involve dominance).
Different forms of biocultural feminism arise from taking different moral foci. One major moral focus is on ecology; that results in eco-feminism. Another major moral focus is on spirituality. This sees the Judeo-Christian tradition as dominated primarily by men and masculine values. It sees the Judeo-Christian tradition as having failed to provide for women’s spirituality and for a nurturance-based morality. One variety of the women’s spirituality movement seeks to reform existing Judeo-Christian religions by giving them a focus on nurturance (see Chapter 14 above). Others seek to create new religious movements, for example, the goddess movement, in which the earth is seen as a nurturant mother and a divine being. Another variant on this theme is wicca, which focuses on the power of women’s spirituality and women’s special ability to use their spiritual power to serve the cause of nurturance.
When moral focus is placed on the sex act itself, the result is lesbian feminism, another form of biocultural feminism. In lesbian feminism, lesbian sex is seen as being centered on nurturance, while heterosexual sex is seen as centered on domination. Though lesbians prefer nurturance in sex and women as sex partners, lesbian feminism is not necessarily antimale (though it may be). Many lesbian feminists simply want to bring nurturance and nurturant gender roles into prominence in American culture in general and in sex in particular.
What we see in these variants of feminism within liberalism is the generalized feminism discussed above, and variants of it defined by two kinds of parameters: (1) acceptance or nonacceptance of the gender stereotypes and (2) moral focus.
CONSERVATIVE FEMINISMS
On the same page on which Rush Limbaugh uses the term “femi-Nazis,” he says “When I attack feminism, I am not opposing equal opportunities for women. I am totally in favor of equal pay for equal work” (C1, Limbaugh 1993, p. 233).
On the whole, conservatives are opposed to feminism. Yet there is emerging a generation of conservative women who see themselves as feminists; at least, they believe that women are strong, should have equal opportunity, and deserve equal pay for equal work. If feminism were no more than that, Rush Limbaugh would be a card-carrying feminist. The question of what a conservative feminist is, then, is important first because there are going to be many more of them, and second, because it sheds light on what conservatism is, what feminism is, why feminists have tended to be liberals, and why conservatives are appalled by the classical liberal varieties of feminism.
There are certain things that conservative feminism cannot be. Conservatives do not believe that there are social causes of individual failures, as we have seen. They believe that, if you have enough self-discipline and character, you can succeed. Therefore, conservative feminists cannot accept the idea that gender stereotypes have social causal powers. Nor can they accept the idea that social programs such as affirmative action are needed to “remedy” a social cause that they do not believe, on principle, could possibly be responsible for individual failures. A conservative feminism must be a version of Strict Father morality.
What I have been calling Strict Father morality is what many feminists mean by the term “patriarchy.” I have not used the term, partly because of its negative and ideological overtones and partly because I wanted to be more specific. Within Strict Father morality, the part that applies specifically to women is the metaphor that the Moral Order Is the Natural Order (of dominance): God over human beings; human beings over nature; parents over children; men over women. It is this metaphor that plays the role in Strict Father morality of justifying the moral authority of men over women, both in the family and in society at large.
Now, the Moral Order in the Strict Father worldview has changed in Western culture over the years. It used to include whites over nonwhites, for example, and nobles over commoners. That has changed very considerably. Suppose, now, that the change in the Moral Order metaphor moves one step further and eliminates the clause “men over women.” What you get is a kind of conservative feminism. It keeps all aspects of conservatism except those tied to men’s domination and moral authority over women.
Here’s what changes: In the family, men and women have equal responsibility for decisions. Men no longer have a say about women’s sexuality. Options are open. If a woman chooses to have sex before marriage, it is her own business, provided she is no longer dependent on her family and provided she takes full responsibility for the consequences of her actions. There is no pressure for women to put homemaking ahead of a career. And there is no reason, as a feminist, not to be sexy and sensual, not to use femininity to gain power, not to dress well, and so on. Conservative feminists feel comfortable about the use of power, including sexual power.
On most issues, a conservative feminist is the same as other conservatives. She is against affirmative action for the same reason all conservatives are: because it gives people something they don’t earn. Unrestricted free enterprise supports, in principle, equality of opportunity for women and equal pay for equal work. But affirmative action to “level the playing field” would still be immoral. She would still believe in moral authority, in a reduced version of the moral order, in hierarchy, and in elites of achievement. But women would not be lower in the moral order just by virtue of being women. She would still believe that punishment and reward are the basis of morality, and she would still believe in the primacy of moral strength (self-discipline, responsibility, and self-reliance), and she would still be against welfare and other social programs, against gun control, for the death penalty, against government regulation, and so on. Because she believes in the primacy of moral strength, self-discipline, and responsibility, she would have little patience for women who see themselves as victims, say, of date rape. They know the score and, with self-discipline, can just say no. She would look down on women who whine; they are morally weak and give women a bad name. A conservative feminist would not be constrained by her moral worldview to be either for or against abortion. She could go either way on that issue.
I have encountered women with such views and I believe there is no lack of them. In political life, Governor Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey is an example. A good example among conservative authors would be Lisa Schiffren, a former speechwriter for Dan Quayle. Here, as an example of a conservative feminist position, is part of Schiffren’s argument against making the men who impregnate unmarried women on welfare financially responsible for the care of their offspring. Part of the argument is that such a policy won’t work. Another part is that “It is bad policy for the state to enforce a contract that does not exist.” But the main argument is that women should be responsible for their own actions.
Since women and girls have sexual autonomy, they can and should be held responsible for how they use it. Before I am accused of blaming the victim, or wishing to deny women sexual freedom, recall that the women in question are not the classic victim caricatures that the feminist-welfare lobby likes to cite. These are not wives bound by law or financial dependence to husbands. They are single women who control economic resources, in this case the A.F.D.C. check.
Contraception to prevent pregnancy is available—including Norplant, Depo-Provera and the pill. Abortion is an option.
Girls have the same educational opportunities and most of the same economic opportunities boys have. This makes the choice of dependence less acceptable for poor women, just as it has for middle-class women.
The most useful thing we can do for girls on the verge of becoming welfare mothers is to make education, work, and marriage preferable to subsisting on a welfare check. (New York Times, Op-Ed, August 10, 1995)
Here is a classic conservative argument with a feminist twist: women with sexual freedom, educational and economic opportunity, controlling their own fates and therefore being responsible for themselves.
THE CONSERVATIVE GODDESS MOVEMENT
Is it possible for conservatives—women and men—to see the earth as a goddess? Could there be a conservative spiritual eco-feminism? In fact, such a variation on conservatism is already in existence—and it has arisen out of evangelical Protestantism. It accepts the truth of the gender stereotypes, as does the goddess movement. But it does not want women’s values to replace men’s in society. It accepts the Strict Father model of the family, the limitation of women to the domestic sphere, and the role of the wife as functioning to raise the children and support her husband’s authority. In short, it supports the existing moral order and the legitimate authority of men as leaders. And yet, it is a version of the goddess movement, complete with solstice rituals, power spots on the earth, shamanistic practices, the identification of the earth as a woman, and the unique abilities of women to tune into the rhythms of nature and tap into the power of the earth because of the nature of women’s bodies.
What links this version of the goddess movement with conservatism is the concern with power. It focuses on the strength of women and on what the strength of women has to contribute to the Strict Father family. It does not in any way challenge the Strict Father model as it applies to men, the family, and social arrangements. It accepts the social arrangement in which women do most of the child-rearing and housework and may have to hold down part-time jobs to make ends meet. It addresses the question of how women can find the strength for all this, as well as, quite often, trying to help their husbands overcome such common male tendencies as alcoholism, abusiveness, uncommunicative-ness, and inability to express feelings. It also addresses the question of how women can find the strength to deal with the realities of divorce.
To find strength, women look to their bodies, to their emotionality, to their connection to the earth, and to their spiritual power. Women find and hold ceremonies at power spots in the terrain, places where they can tap into the power of the earth. Women lead healing rituals out in nature, rituals in which they sing, beat drums, dance, and allow the power of the body to emerge—rituals that in many ways are like evangelical Protestant church services. Women bring their husbands and families to such rituals so that they can share in the benefits of what women are seen to be best at and come to respect women for the kind of power they have.
All of this can fit quite nicely with most of conservative politics and Strict Father morality. It says women should find the spiritual strength to be as self-reliant as possible. It accepts the moral order in which men have legitimate authority in the family and the public world, but asserts that women have a vital role to play within this structure of authority; and that they have special strengths, nurturant strengths, to be cultivated and respected, even though they are subordinated to the authority of their husbands in a strict father family. Wives should not be helpless; they and their husbands and their children need all the power women can muster.
Women in the conservative goddess movement are conservatives. The earth as a source of power is seen as a resource, both physical and spiritual, for human beings. They do not support liberal ecological ideas such as self-sustainability and environmental protection. They do not support affirmative action. They do not believe that Nurturant Parent morality should apply to the world. They are conservative women, and want respect for being conservative women.
The study of varieties of feminism further confirms the overall theme of this book—that Nurturant Parent and Strict Father models underlie liberalism and conservatism. Conservative forms of feminism may be feminist in various ways, in promoting the idea that women are (or should be) free, strong, competent, responsible for themselves, and deserving of equal opportunity. But conservative forms of feminism do not bring with them Nurturant Parent morality.
Theoretically, the study of varieties of feminism confirms what the study of varieties of liberalism and conservatism confirms, that radial categories are natural and that they arise spontaneously because of natural parameters of variation.
Summary
“Liberal” and “conservative” are not just political categories. They are categories whose central members are defined by family-based moral systems that are projected by the Nation As Family metaphor onto the domain of politics. The categories are then extended in the way categories usually are—by variations on the central models that define noncentral subcategories. The parameters of variation include: (1) Linear Scales; (2) the Pragmatic-Idealistic dimension; (3) Moral Focus; and (4) Moral Order variation.
The nature of such variations is just what research in cognitive science would lead one to expect. The nature of variations within each model reflects the structure of the model.